Dancing With Death
by Thanatos-Aire
Summary: 2112, implied lime, some swearing, bad symbolism galore, Heero POV.


Dancing With Death 

ThanatosAire 

September 2004 

Eh. Just a crappy little fic. But like all my other stuff, there's language and a little violence, and non-het, vague limeade, and strange symbolic allusions. You should know that by now. Just like you should know by now that I own diddlysquat.

* * *

"Heero, you're so stupid…" 

Hm? 

"Gods, don't look at me that way!" Zero-Two huffs angrily. "You know exactly what I'm talking about." I blink at him, not understanding. The braided menace has been rambling for the past twenty-three and a half minutes, about gods-know what, and honestly, I was trying not to pay attention. 

He purses his lips at my response, er, lack thereof anyway. 

"Heero, you are the biggest idiot I've ever known!" he retorts, "OZ cronies are smarter than you!" 

He stands up heavily and storms away from the bed. I just stifle a shrug and close my eyes, finding myself not really caring what the hell it is he's blabbering on about. 

But behind my eyelids, I can still see him standing there, arms crossed with his elbows leaning on the window sill. His ankles are crossed, one leg perfectly straight, his pert ass sticking out as he hangs his head, looking at the worn wood beneath his hands. The spring breeze coming through the window ruffles through his long bangs and makes the tail-end of his braid bounce at his hip. 

I banish the image from my mind, intent on sleeping. 

If I rest now, my injuries will heal quickly enough for me to be fully mission-ready in about… My mind calculates idly and comes up with two weeks. Fuck, that's too long. 

I can hear him shift. If just for a moment, I wonder what I'd see if I opened my eyes again. 

"With all your super-duper spiffy skills," Zero-Two continues on, softer and not as angry, "all that training and all those smarts… You are just one big dumb-ass, you know that, Heero?" 

What the hell? 

"Gods know you're absolutely perfect, so why are you so stupid?" I hear him sigh and imagine his back caving up with that breath. "Then again," he mutters, "maybe that's _why_ you're so perfect…" 

I give up. 

Curiosity may have killed the cat but I'm a fucking human being. 

… Supposedly, anyway. 

"Maxwell, what the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, opening my eyes to glare at him. He's still at the window, but now has an arm propped up with his chin in palm, blue-amaryllis eyes searching the twilight sky outside. 

After a moment, Zero-Two turns to look at me. His whole body twists and _supples_ as he does so. "You can't die." 

I'm still confused. Did the damned American hit his head? Does he know that he isn't making any goddamn sense? 

"What?" 

He sighs, shifting again. I can't help but note the way his lean form just moulds around like that, how everything just slinks together. "You don't know how." Zero-Two attempts to clarify. "You've self-destructed multiple times, you've gotten shot and jumped out of fucking buildings… You've been blown up, stabbed, poisoned, beat, burned, and hell I don't know what else… But you've managed to flick the Grim Reaper off every single damn time." He snorts. "Hell, you _have_ died, but are just so stupid you don't realize it and you just get up and continue on living." 

I sniff. That's bad…? I have no problem expending myself for the mission. Sacrificing my life for peace is not a big deal. I'd die in a heartbeat if it meant the end of the war. And I have. 

But I'm still alive, still useful, still worth something. My skills and training are valuable assets, they can be put to work to help finish this bloody conflict. And Maxwell wants me dead? He's pissed that I'm not…? 

I gaze upon him, taking in the carefully blank face, the agitated stance he keeps changing, sombre eyes that match the twilight horizon. No, Zero-Two isn't ticked off… He's… worried? 

"Why should you be concerned about my life?" 

"You're a fool," he snaps, "A goddamned _fool_." 

Zero-Two lunges across the room to begin pacing in a jerky, irritated manner. "Why don't you just give up? Hm? You can get out of this place, Heero… You can leave, you can put all this bloody crap behind you and give it all up… But you don't." He wrings his hands animatedly as he scowls. "Gods know you've gotten enough chances, more than enough opportunities to just…" He throws himself into the wooden chair beside the door, covering his face with his hands, elbows on knees, and anticlimactically finishes, "…stop…" 

Then his baritone voice stumbles over his words as if he can't get them out fast enough, not even thinking as he nervously flips at a bang or clenches a fist. "You just keep coming back for more. Why, Heero? You can let go of all the pain, you can stop fighting… But you don't. You won't die and that's killing me inside." 

… 

I… I blink, unable to do anything more in light of this revelation. 

I finally manage to shake my head clear of the nothingness and force myself to think. I pull myself up to sit, back against the bed's headboard. I ignore the pain like I usually do. "Duo…?" 

When he finally answers me, his voice is tired and strained but patient, as if I'm a child. "Yeah, Heero?" 

"I am dying." 

He looks up at me silently. Not understanding, he blinks, slowly. "What?" he asks quietly, hands falling to dangle between his spread knees as he keeps his back arched down. 

"I'm dying right now," I tell him. "I've always been half-dead. That's why I can't just give up." Those blue-amaryllis eyes soften as he frowns gently. 

"You've got one foot out the door," he murmurs. It looks like he understands now, though I can't be sure… 

"You call yourself Shinigami -- the God of Death, a Grim Reaper… You of all people should know and understand." He nods hesitantly, looking a bit lost. Maybe… forlorn? 

He nods again, firmly, and gives a half-sigh of some long-denied resignation. Zero-Two sits up for half a moment before standing and crossing over to the bed; he wraps his arms around my shoulders in a slight hug and kisses the side of my head before I can untangle an arm to push his off. But the American stalks back after a few seconds, to return to the window. He hops up to sit on the ledge sideways, the radio on the stand behind him teetering as his braid hits it. 

It falls over backwards and begins to play a soft classical piece barely audible from the bed. I sigh as Zero-Two doesn't notice nor move to shut it off. He just stares out at the wisteria and iris sky that matches his hidden eyes. I get up silently, moving around the bed to stand a metre away from the window behind him. 

The radio was quiet, but the tinny sounds of music wafts up on the deepening twilight's breeze. I blink, then reach out to turn the volume up a little. After a moment, I turn and hold out my hand, palm-up. 

"Dance with me?" 

Zero-Two blinks, looking between my face and hand. After a moment, he shrugs and slides his own palm against mine. "Yeah, sure." he says almost jadedly as he slips off the window ledge, "Why not?" I slip an arm around his waist, pulling him closer and he grasps my shoulder awkwardly. 

It takes a moment for our feet to untangle as we both go to lead, but he allows me dominance and I tug him around the room in a tight oval. As we waltz about slowly, the song on the radio changes, but we keep our pace. Zero-Two's braid sways along with us, following the motion of his hips, and after a while, he lays his head on my shoulder. So I shift, releasing his hand and holding onto his waist with both hands. 

He wraps both of his arms over my neck and suddenly we are even closer then before. The radio statics as we step in its frequency zone, but neither of us really care. I'm too busy trying to push out these thoughts from my mind. 

But those eyes of his, watching me, boring into my own, hold me captive. He's looking at me now, but I can still feel them from before. The thoughts cannot help but resurface, and I step wrong as I manage to stifle the hundred questions I suddenly need to ask. Zero-Two doesn't seem to notice and shuffles a little to accommodate for my mistake. The song changes again, but we still rock back and forth together slowly, staring into each other's souls, it seems like. 

I can see his pain in those orchid-coloured eyes, and for a brief moment, fear. Before I can wonder about it, Zero-Two -- 

No… Duo. Duo is his name. He is Zero-Two just as I am Zero-One, but I am also Heero and he is also Duo. 

Yes. Duo. _Duo_ kissed me. 

After a moment, I return it, tightening my hold on his hips to press us flush against each other. His hands tangle in my hair to tilt my head and he parts my lips with a hesitant tongue. 

We still waltz together, breaking the narrow oval to gravitate towards the bed. Breaking the kiss, Duo sits on the edge of the mattress, bowing back invitingly. I press a knee on the bed to lean over him, dragging my hands up his black-clothed sides. 

There is a moment of stillness as we search each other's faces. His eyes, a dozen emotions flashing through them in that one moment, lock onto mine. 

And I nod. Once. 

And then, we are dancing again, Death and I, only this time, my big feet can't get in the way and trip us up. 

Duo kisses me again, pulling me down ontop of him closer as his hands smooth over my bandages. Briefly, it occurs to me that this could prolong the time until I'm healed and mission-ready, but Duo dashes that thought away with a soft moan in the back of his throat. 

The slow dolente staccatos into a waltz and Duo gently rolls over with me. I don't have to stretch now, twisting about to feel him, to touch him, to flirt with the grinning Death incarnate. He does that for me, moving against me, hands and lips appearing and disappearing everywhere, planting little kisses on the bandages and smoothing the gauze back into place. 

I cannot keep up with him: Shinigami darts in to steal a nip here, ducking back out to suckle there. It's not that I haven't done this before, it's that he's done this more. 

I'm not the only one who's danced with Death. 

The waltz slurs into something faster, heavier. My heart's thudding beats are in time with the motions, with the movements, with the noises. We have to change positions on the bed for comfort, so that I am once again lying on the bed properly, but then it doesn't matter. 

The dance is all there is. There is nothing else, nothing but me and Death and Duo and the dance. 

It glides up into a resounding crescendo of a climax before pattering off into a gentle aria. 

When it's over, it's just the two of us, Heero and Duo, Duo and Heero… Zero-One and Zero-Two are gone for the moment, Death is at the back of our minds. 

It's hard to take in a big enough breath, and I am unsure if it is because of my injuries or not. But he doesn't seem so affected, and rolls off to lie beside me. We silently pull up the covers and he sets my head beneath his chin with gentle hands, one running through my hair in an action I cannot remember ever having received before. 

It is quiet, peaceful. Death cannot reach us here. Then, to break the comfortable silence, 

"I would die for you," 

We tighten our grasps on each other, feeling content to cuddle under the sheets. Then: "I would _live_ for you." 

And we both close our eyes to sleep, preparing for the next battle.

* * *

owari 


End file.
